"The Wire" on HBO

saw ziggy on 2nd ave last nite

there was an awesome bit on gawker a while back about ziggy not only preventing a rape from happening in his bldg's vestibule but chasing the rapist down and beating him with a 2'x4' or something because he hates people who disrespect women.

yeah so awes. i think theres an article linked ot or excerpted upthread. almost makes up for the auto-erotic asphyxiation in that larry clark shitbomb.

ott doesn't mean off the topic

i reaaally wish i hadnt seen that scene

OTT = OVER THE TOP JERKIES

I DONT KNOW MY OTT FROM MY TRU DATS

I've been using it to mean off the topic for a long time. I'm surprised no one called me on it. I must have been writing some weird sentences.

IT STANDS FOR OMGLOLWTF JERX

OT

PITCHFORK'S OTT

I think that season two kind of was a tangent (the dockworker stuff, anyway), at least insofar as it isn't that deeply intertwined with the rest of the series as a whole. It would be a different story if, for instance, we were still following characters within the Polish community and we saw how their lives were affected by the events that make up the main thrust of the series. I guess that one could argue that the tangential nature was intentional, depending on how segregated Baltimore really is and how little interaction there generally is between those communities.

Season 2 is crucial if only for "did it have any hands or feet? Then it wasn't me!"

season 2 also spread out their universe which i think was necessary for balance

Oh, and another thing about Season 2 is that a homicide division (or subbranch thereof) is going to have to investigate crimes other than those about the main plotline of the show, but you still learn about Prop Joe, Cheese, Beadie, the Greek and his guys (who factor in later with Marlo), the rise of Carcetti, the kingmaking power/spite of Valchek, ...

Also, it was fun to get a glimpse of life working a boat detail, or working in records, or etc.

sure the stevedores didnt reappear after their season but they did provide important context. like why is this society like this? amongst other things there are no working class jobs anymore. so, not tangential - each season's shown a piece of the puzzle.

1 drug war
2 working man
3 city hall
4 education
5 media

i hope we get more vondas in season 5

I thought Carcetti showed up in season 3?

Season 2 is only a letdown in that S1 is basically the best 12 hours of TV ever. I don't think the show ever equalled the novel-like vision of the first season - after that it became more like a TV show (still utterly fantastic but different).

You mighta nailed it, milo. I really want to watch the series all the way through again, at which point I may very well be convinced that season 2 is more crucial than I'd previously believed.

i still like 2 more than 3

4 is still my favorite

1-2-4-3

12342534231234234235135135435153

1 is still my least favorite season by far, but maybe I should rewatch it.

I thought Carcetti showed up in season 3?

Maybe (don't remember), but I think all S2 stuff put in motion a lot of events that led to Carcetti's rise.

I thought that possibly at the end of S4 where Marlo was getting paranoid and started asking questions about the greek guy that we were going to come back to that storyline in S5. S2 was fucking brilliant - as was said upthread it was a tangent but a no other show would have followed it through so far or so well.

1 • 3 • 4 • 2

4 IS TEH NUTZ

i think s2 is great. frankie sobotka is a great tragic character.

yah sobotka is brilliant

Notice how no Wire fan has said that any season is dull or not worth bothering with. Because it's all good. I like 4 especially maybe because it's especially... gritty. Because Chris and Snoop are some of my favorite villians of all time.

I like season 2 but I think they could've done some slightly more interesting things to address Baltimore's depressed post-industrial workforce. I mean, I think the decline of Bethlehem Steel had a bigger impact on Baltimore's working class than the docks, but that'd probably be harder to work into a show about cops and criminals.

I think there's a reference to this also - iirc Spiros points across the water when talking to Frank and says "They used to make steel there, no?"

yeah, how are the docks not related to steel?

Gary, Indiana suffered the same and worse fate... they used to make steel, and the raw materials needed to do that were so heavy that they were cheaper and easier to ship over water. As the stteel industry collapsed, mostly in the 80's, the cities that steel built shrank, and eventually even shipping ordinary goods to those places became less appealing.

that's a HUGE simplification, obv. But docks and steel go together, sure they do.

The British Geological Survey reports that in 2005, China was the top producer of steel with about one-third world share followed by Japan, Russia and the USA.

Sure, and you could probably name dozens of other American cities with similar stories. Jersey City, where I live now, was a huge dock town. You know that rather bland skyline you see across the Hudson from lower Manhattan? It's all built on what used to be railroad and docks. (my understanding is that the city government practically gave the land to Samuel LeFrak for the original Newport development.)

I'm starting to think the main problem in Season 2 is just that the writing isn't as tight. Episode 7 is pretty weak - there are like five scenes that end with people laughing at something just said, the point of each scene is telegraphed, and there are a lot of moments that feel like watered-down rehashes of season 1.

I did love the Omar testimony in episode 6 though.

Really? I thought that felt really forced.

I liked it, but all the "Gosh Omar, you so crazy!" stuff afterwards was groanworthy.

A lot of somewhat redundant scenes too, or stuff that could have been done more efficiently. We don't need to see Cedric arguing Marla about his work on the case twice in the same episode, for example.

Also D'Angelo's funeral was one of the least effective funeral scenes I've ever watched, and I'm not even sure why.

xpost I thought it made for an especially unrealistic court scene. Why would a lawyer of that caliber, good or bad, even bother to react to Omar? Surely he knows that he'll look better in court if he doesn't react.

You may be right about that. I guess he's supposed to be caught off guard, but it's hard to believe a lawyer that good would just stop in his tracks and not come up with a recovery.

For work earlier this month I came across this info on the largest steel mill in the country, near Baltimore:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparrows_Point

> all the "Gosh Omar, you so crazy!" stuff afterwards was groanworthy

ERROR!

"You really askin'?" is one of my favorite laugh lines in the series, up there with "Got to, this is America" "They got honeynut Cheerios?" and "I can't wait to go to jail."

series 2 is amazing. also there's a lot more to it than the stevedores. i suppose s01 is "two things": the cops, and the barksdale crew. s02 is "three things": the cops, the smuggling operation, the drug crews. it's not just an introduction to prop joe, it's stringer embarking on his ill-fated product > territory strategy.

also i think it's been funnier since s01? i'm not dissing the first series, but i think david simon has (been made to) declench(ed) a bit.

"Ey mista nugget - you da bomb! You got the bone all the way out the chicken. So I'm gonna write my clowny ass name on this fat ass check."

(I know that's not exactly it - I'm paraphrasing from memory)

I got a call from Blake Leyh yesterday asking for some help on getting music for season 5, got some cool tidbits about the montage they're shooting for the finale this week. This last year of the show is gonna be some awesome. [/ namedropping]